SeaWorld Seven Seas Food Festival — Walkabout Day Two 2022

The weather has been great for walking around and sampling some new food items at the SeaWorld Seven Seas Food Festival. The annual festival runs from now until May 8th, 2022 — so there's still plenty of time to enjoy a Sampler Lanyard.

Recapping from my previous article, the Sampler Lanyard is definitely the way to go if you want to try more than a couple of things at the festival this year. The full retail prices are a little high for what you're getting, but there's a substantial savings with any of the Sampler Lanyards. Just like with my last walkabout article, I'm including what I thought of each item at the four different price points. The results have been pretty interesting so far!

I'm going to start right where the savory items begin on the food trail this year, at the Caribbean Market booth.



While I had really high hopes for these items when the menu was first published, I've found the actual food (or possibly the inconsistent preparation of that food) to be a little disappointing. I didn't have much hope for the Jerk Chicken Hot Slider — but I'm happy to report, I was pleasantly surprised with this one!



For starters, everything that was printed on the menu board, was actually on the slider. Chicken with a Brown Sugar Hot Sauce (relatively speaking), and a Pineapple Salsa.

SeaWorld is currently using a great chicken supplier, because all of the prepared and portioned chicken items at the restaurants and the food booths, all seem to be really great…. juicy, crispy, tender… whatever they're supposed to be, they're pretty great.

This little slider was a sloppy mess, but it had a really great combination of flavors and textures. To me, it was "theme park safe" hot — which is to say it was one of the more mild "jerk spice" profiles I've had in a while — but it was still a great little sandwich. I still wince a little bit at the $10.99 price point, but when purchased with any of the Sampler Lanyards, it's about right.



I'm really glad to see that the practice of putting festival food and beverage items inside full-time restaurants has been limited this year. It's a logical thing to do from an operational standpoint, but it makes any special festival item, seem a little less special – and it makes the (sometimes) long lines at the restaurants, even longer.

With that being said, I did find this "SeaWorld Fin Pretzel" with Beer Cheese Dip over at the Waterway Bar and Grill.



As far as I know, it's the only food item that's located in a full-time location this year. The Waterway Bar is more of a walkup location though, and doesn't ever really seem to have the long lines that the nearby Waterway Grill has around peek dining times.

It's a Pretzel — with Beer Cheese Dip — and would be great for pulling apart and sharing if everyone in your group is getting a beer or frozen daiquiri from the bar. There's also a "Frozen Watermelon Margarita" at this location that's unique to this year's festival.



Next up, is one of the festival highlight items — it's the White Cheddar KRAFT® Mac N Cheese & Lobster plate from the All-American Market booth (which is located next the the entrance of Voyager's Smokehouse).



Mac and Cheese isn't new to the festival, it's probably been a part of every SeaWorld food festival that I can remember, but what is unique — are the mix-in and toppings that they add to the Mac & Cheese that give each dish a unique flavor and texture profile.



The tie-in with Kraft Heinz means the Mac & Cheese is cheesy, so that's taken care of. Mixed in with this year's Mac & Cheese is some Lobster Bisque (which is a pretty great food service idea, I gotta say) and some occasional tiny Lobster Chunks for additional color. A little more texture and color came from some lightly herbed panko style bread crumbs that were evenly spread on top of the Mac & Cheese, along with a couple of sliced chives here and there.

This really is a great Mac & Cheese because you've got the smooth texture of the Mac & Cheese and the crunch of those bread crumbs, a little extra salty pop from the lobster chunks and cooler garden-like freshness from the cut chives. It's a great item, and there's a decent amount of it on each plate too — so the portion size with the flavors and textures almost get me to a full-on thumbs up at the retail price point. Not quite, but almost.



There's an interesting Ireland Market booth this year, that … I felt was in a rather odd location. The park layout is in the process of changing though, so many of the dedicated festival locations of year's past, are no longer available.



There's three brand new items at the Ireland Market booth for 2022 (because there was no Ireland Market booth in previous years). I haven't tried everything at the Ireland Market booth, but the first thing I did try — the Crispy Ruben Egg Roll — ended up not really being an Egg Roll or a Ruben.



That's not to say it was bad — it's just worth pointing out that sometimes, fusion foods end up being in their own, new category.

The item looked great and was nicely plated — all of the food elements were in place — it's just that the sharp, pungent flavors that you would expect to taste with Corned Beef, Sauerkraut, Swiss Cheese and Thousand Island dressing were muted by a rather thick egg roll. In fact, the egg roll is the predominant flavor in this dish — which wasn't what I was expecting.

I will say though… the retail $8.99 price point on this one — is in-line with what I think most of the items this year should be. So while it wasn't a "10 out of 10" flavor success — this one is a model for what I think of, when thinking about "festival food"… the item, with a topping or sauce, and a third "nesting" element (the loose cabbage and carrot slaw under the egg roll).



Finally, a dessert item from a booth I visited earlier in the day, it's the Funnel Cake with toppings from the All-American Market booth.



I wasn't really given a choice of toppings, it's basically all the toppings on one Funnel Cake. This one was a sloppy mess, but a fun sloppy mess, and everything tasted like a fully topped funnel cake should. The funnel cake itself had been pre-made by five or ten minutes which is the only thing that kept it from being a "great" funnel cake. It's just one of those items (like coffee) that's better when it's fresh-made.

The price point is fine on this one as well. It's about the same at all the parks and it really isn't a "sample" size. It's a full-on funnel cake, just as large as you would find elsewhere.



If I were to nitpick this one, I found the topping combo to be a little halfhearted when considering the booth is called the "American Market". To me, Nutella is French… Chocolate is German, Italian, Mexican, Swiss, or Belgium even… Strawberries, I could see the Florida tie-in with Strawberries.

It's that concept and menu pre-planning that seems to have taken a slight step backwards at this year's Seven Seas Food Festival, compared to previous years. I could totally see a Funnel Cake being an option at just about any booth — but from the American Market booth — maybe topped with a Bourbon sauce with Apples and Cranberries, or maybe even Peaches and Cream? How about a Vermont Maple Cinnamon Bacon Funnel Cake?

At the end of the day, I'm actually fine with the price points being what they are (or even higher) … the Sampler Lanyard is a great way to save a few bucks and enjoy the festival … BUT — as prices increase, so do my expectations with regard to menu planning and execution.



I've been a huge supporter of the foodie-based festivals at SeaWorld over the years. I do like the street-food approach very much — making the dishes a little more accessible and not so much about flavored foam or edible flowers. This is still a food festival though, and it just seems like the festival items are moving more into the "state fair / county carnival" territory. Your average, busy corner, Friday night food truck is probably going to have more diverse and flavorful items than what I've encountered so far at SeaWorld this year.

It's still fun. There really hasn't been any "bad" food — so it's still a fun day (or days in my case). But SeaWorld themselves has stopped using the words "street food from around the world" in their marketing material to describe the festival. They're now using the words "fresh global cuisine choices" instead — and so, it seems, they themselves have raised the bar… that messaging just hasn't made it into the food just yet.

If you would like to see and read more about the SeaWorld Orlando Seven Seas Food Festival — Click Here! We've got a whole page where you'll find menu boards and prices, food photos, concert schedules, and reviews.